If you sit through the first couple of episodes you will be surprised. What seems like a typical story at first turns out to be far from typical.
I thought it was going to be another one of those magical girl animes where the main character, in this case Yoko, is an annoying high school girl that can't do anything on her own. Weak and useless, the kind of character you can't stand, at least I couldn't. I was about to stop watching, but . . .
Boy was I glad I didn't. I don't want to give away too much, but this series has some of the best character development I've ever seen in anime. Simply put, by the end of the first arc, Yoko was a completely different person.
Juuni Kokki has such an amazing story, once you really get into it, it's very hard to stop watching. Often times a character will be in the middle of explaining something and they have all your attention ... and then the episode just ends and it really forces you to continue because it's so intriguing. There's so much to learn about the world of The Twelve Kingdoms~ the people in it and how they live. The story itself could be very moving at times. You really feel for the characters, after all that they go through. I can't really go as in depth as some of the other reviews, so you may want to look elsewhere for more info
Each episode seems to end at such a weird place, it forces you to jump right to the next episode. The way they decided to do this, it would seem unnatural. You normally wouldn't end an episode while in the middle of explaining something. However, in The Twelve Kingdoms, this very unique idea actually works in favor of the anime.
I feel that it deserves a five star rating, despite the fact that it was left unfinished. We still get to see the resolution of the main character's storyline, although it would have been nice if they took it further.
In the end, Juuni Kokki has already taken its place as one of the best animes I've seen.
